


Winter Song

by SomewhereApart



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hyperion Heights, OQ Advent 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27892312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomewhereApart/pseuds/SomewhereApart
Summary: Regina thinks this Christmas may be her worst Christmas yet, but the fates (and her other half) have other plans for her.
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Robin Hood
Comments: 15
Kudos: 78





	Winter Song

**Author's Note:**

> For OQ Advent 2020

Regina has had her share of bad Christmases. There’d been the Yuletide when she was eight that she’d spent with a broken collarbone courtesy of her mother. Every single one she spent as Leopold’s wife, watching him dote on Snow all day and then summon Regina to his chambers for a little holiday “celebration.” The first one in Storybrooke—her first without her father, bogged down by the guilt that had come hand in hand with the grief. Several lonely ones in those eighteen years before Henry, when Graham had other plans and she spent the day alone in her house, watching the neighbors’ families come and go. That first one after Henry found out he was adopted, when he’d barely spoken to her and hadn’t even opened his gifts. Or worse, the one after Emma had broken the curse, when she’d given him up to David for his own good and had no idea when she’d ever get him back. 

There’d been the one in the Missing Year that she’d spent shut up in her rooms, tear-stained and grief stricken in a way that surpassed even the year after she’d killed her father. She’d had a bitter, biting argument with Snow the day before over Regina’s refusal to unseal the royal bedchambers she’d bricked over after Leopold’s untimely death. Snow had wanted the rooms for herself and David, had insisted it seemed the right thing seeing as they were all joint monarchs now, and Regina had been unable—unwilling—to tell her that such a thing was impossible, seeing as she’d blasted the bed into splinters, the furniture into kindling, and burned the room to ash decades ago. So they hadn’t been speaking, which had been fine by Regina, but had the unfortunate (fortunate?) side effect of _Robin_ being the only unlucky soul brave enough to bring her a plate from the Yuletide feast so she wouldn’t spend the night both miserable _and_ starving. 

It had been a mistake, of the best kind. She’d been miserable, and vulnerable, and he’d been all blue eyes full of sympathy but devoid of pity. She’d let him in—she still has no idea why, except that she’d been painfully lonely, and he’d been painfully handsome—and they’d talked for a while about Marian, about Henry, about loss. She’d kissed him, like an idiot, and he’d let her. And then, well… one thing had led to another, and they’d ended up naked and frantic on the fur rug in front of her fire. And then a bit less frantic in her big, warm bed. She’d regretted it the next morning, had used it as the reason for her sharp tongue and icy glares in his direction, and would hear none of his apologies for taking advantage of her grief—at least, until the next time she found herself miserable and needy and pulled him into an abandoned alcove and a flurry of eager kisses. 

It had been a mistake to bed him for the first time at Christmas, because she’d never been able to untangle the memory from the date and it seems they’d been doomed from the start, she and Robin. The Christmas after he’d left with who they _thought_ was his wife, she’d spent the whole day hoping that he would call. They’d agreed to part ways, to end things for good, for the best, but she’d hoped foolishly that he’d call and wish her a Happy Christmas anyway. That he’d spent the day thinking of her the way she’d spent the day thinking of him, and that he’d have been unable to resist picking up the phone and reaching out one more time. 

He hadn’t, and she’d been heartsick. It hadn’t helped that she’d sent Henry to the Charmings’ for the day, not wanting to ruin _his_ Christmas with her brooding misery. And she’d succeeded in _that_ , but the end result was that _she_ had been not only brooding and miserable, but alone on Christmas.

So yes, Regina has had her share of miserable Christmases, but _this_ one? This one is the worst. 

She’s spoiled now—by the years she spent baking cookies and making snow angels with Henry when he was little, and the years she spent with a full table of family who loved her after they’d finally, _finally_ all settled their differences. She’d learned to push the melancholy memories of Robin, of her father, to the edges of the day and spend the bulk of it feeling festive and joyful. It had been hard not to with Henry around. 

Henry has always _loved_ Christmas, so she has years of memories of the two of them in matching Christmas pajamas watching _Rudolph_ or _Frosty_ , making baggies of oats flecked with glitter to be sprinkled on the lawn for “reindeer food”, or setting out cookies for Santa. Even when he’d gotten older, he’d still had a truly infectious amount of excitement over dragging her to the tree lot in Storybrooke and picking out the very best one, then trimming it with a truly ridiculous amount of ornaments. After Lucy was born, they’d been able to bond over _parenting_ at Christmas—sneaking downstairs late at night to stuff stockings together, and teaching his little girl the finer points of making reindeer food (with sparkles born of actual magic this time, not dollar store craft glitter). 

Knowing how good it _can_ be rubs salt in the wound this year. 

This year, she is in Seattle. Where it does not snow, it only rains. For days. Cold, wet, dreary rain that chills her to the bone as she trudges to the bar. But she could deal with that, she thinks, if she wasn’t doing said rain-soaked trudging in the clothes of a woman who is jammed into her brain alongside Regina Mills. If she wasn’t spending every day pretending to be someone she’s not, because everyone around her is asleep. Balancing Roni and Regina is exhausting, in a way juggling the lies of the first curse never was. But even _that_ , she thinks, she could deal with if she didn’t have to face the season with Henry right in front of her, clueless to who she is. To who _he_ is.

Because _this_ Henry? The one who’d lost his family, the one whose head is filled with falsehoods and lies, the one who is being kept alive by those very fallacies, he _hates_ Christmas. He wants nothing to do with it—no gifts, no cookies, no reindeer food. He’d even turned down her offer to spend the day commiserating together with Chinese food and horror movies—the AntiChristmas, she’d called it. A day for those who can’t stand the idea of hearing another hour of pop covers of Christmas songs at the bar, and don’t have family to share the holiday with. She’d have suffered through every minute to spend Christmas with her son, but he’d politely declined. 

So here she is.

On Christmas. 

Listening to yet another hour of pop covers of Christmas music in a bar that’s nearly empty save the other family-less patrons drowning their own loneliness with too much whiskey and a half-assed “Christmas dinner” off the menu. 

She misses Henry, and hates the thought of him alone and miserable. She misses Robin, and hates the thought of him long-dead and soul-shattered. She misses her father, and she even misses the Charmings and Emma Swan, and Zelena and Robin. Hell, she’d even take Leroy’s familiar Grumpy face at this point.

She misses herself, and her life, and she misses having hope that things would turn out for the better, because right now, she feels hopeless. Hopeless, and alone, and she regrets opening the bar at all today, because she’d much rather spend the holiday curled up on her sofa watching Christmas movies and drowning her sorrows in spiked cocoa with cinnamon. The only reason she’s here at all is that, much like that year after Robin left, she had the vain hope that Henry would surprise her despite all evidence to the contrary. 

She hoped that maybe he’d get lonely enough to want company and wander down for Christmas dinner at the bar, and maybe, just maybe, she’d get to spend the day with him. All she’s gotten for her foolish optimism is an afternoon of glancing at the door every time it opens only to be disappointed. 

Stupid. She should have known better.

So the next time the door swings open, she ignores it. She _knows_ it isn’t Henry, and the bar is empty enough that she’s put out the “Please Seat Yourself” sign. She can sulk for a few minutes before she brings their menus. 

If she’s lucky, they’ll park themselves at the bar and she won’t even have to mosey across the room. (Of course, if they sit at the bar then she’ll have to _talk_ to them, and she’s in no mood to faux holiday cheer and small talk today.)

A minute later, she hears a man clear his throat behind her and regrets her good fortune.

When she turns around, her whole world stops. 

He’s sitting at the bar, coat shrugged off and the sleeves of his hoodie rucked up to his elbows, with blue eyes that cut right to the heart of her and a dimple that peeks out when he smirks at her no-doubt gobsmacked expression. 

Robin.

Robin is here, impossible as that may be. He’s sitting there clear as day like a fucking Christmas miracle, and her eyes well with shocked tears for a moment before she remembers it isn’t impossible at all. There’s two of him. This isn’t _her_ Robin at all, it’s Locksley.

Regina is just lonely enough that even _his_ presence is a welcome one.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, shaking her head. “For a moment there, I thought you were _my_ Robin.”

“You’re awake, then,” he says, sounding surprised, but not overly so. “That makes things easier.”

There’s a softness to his voice that she doesn’t remember from the last time they saw each other (in the castle he now shares with her other half, and the Merry Men, and Roland, and an orphan son they’d taken in from a nearby village that had been ravaged by flu), and she wishes he’d go back to his usual snarky self. He sounds too much like the man she’d loved, and she is too tenderhearted for that on Christmas. Especially with the way he’s looking at her—too kind, almost affectionately kind. But no pity though—at least he has that in common with his doppelganger. 

Still, it blurs the line in a way that makes her feel needy and vulnerable, and no matter how many times the Queen has joked about her having a “hall pass” with Locksley, Regina doesn’t think that’s at all a good idea. Especially not on Christmas. 

So she tries to temper his softness with her own bite, hoping he’ll rise to the bait with her. She lets her eyes roll, and her own mouth twist into a wry scowl as she leans on the bar and gripes, “It seems I am. Unfortunately. This curse is one of those times where ignorance really was bliss.”

One of his hands reaches toward the two she has clasped on the bartop between them, his hand covering both of hers, thumb stroking back and forth over her knuckles. Regina stills and scowls and looks down to watch the action, tears burning against her lashes again. Robin used to do that. _Her_ Robin. 

Locksley has _never_ done that, and it galls her that he’s doing it now. 

She’s about to yank her hand back and tell him so when she sees them.

Scars. 

Thin and silvery, spreading jagged from under the sleeve of his hoodie where its pushed up to his elbow, spreading over his forearm like electricity. Like lightning. Her heart trips in her chest, pounding hard again like the moment she’d hear his voice and thought he was… but no, it’s impossible, it’s _impossible…_

“I have a message for you, milady,” he tells her, “from the Queen.”

He doesn’t call her that. Locksley, he doesn’t call the Queen that—she's Regina. She’s his _wife_ and it’s not as though there will be any confusing the context when he’s talking to either of them about the other, so he doesn’t… he doesn't call her that, not to Regina. 

Regina’s mouth goes dry, her throat tightening as she looks back up into the face of this man sitting at her bar. It occurs to her in a flash that he’s dressed the way he’d always been—her Robin—in a henley under a hoodie, with that leather jacket shrugged off onto the chair. Locksley had _hated_ that, he’d felt like she was dressing him up to play paper dolls with a dead man. And his hair is… is wrong. It’s the same sandy brown she’d loved to run her fingers through all those years ago; the last time she’d seen Locksley he’d begun to grey in a way that was unfairly attractive. 

Regina is fairly certain she’s stopped breathing.

“Jingle Bell Rock” is playing over the sound system and it suddenly sounds both very tinny and overly loud.

“A-a message?” she stutters, her voice tight and high; she’d be embarrassed if she could think past the sudden wellspring of baffled hope that’s flooded her chest.

“She says to tell you that she found the missing piece, and she wishes you a very happy Christmas.” 

He looks her in the eyes as he says it, watches her face carefully, and Regina feels like the floor has given away beneath her. Like she’s falling at speed even though she is certain she is standing still.

They’d talked about it the last time she’d visited the Enchanted Forest. The Queen had told her that she’d looked for ages for a way to bring Robin—the real, original recipe Robin—back from wherever his soul had been obliterated to. She’d wanted to give Regina the second chance at love and happiness that she herself had been given, but she’d never been able to find a spell that would work. There had always been circumstances that didn’t match, or costs that were simply untenable. The most promising lead she’d had was in a single obscure tome in the darkest corner of the east library—and even that had come from a book so old it was missing pages. And of course, as fate would have it, it had been missing part of the very spell they’d have needed to bring Robin back. If it could even be done—without the missing passages, there was no way to know for sure if it was the right magic for the task.

Regina had muttered wryly that that was probably a sign, but the Queen had insisted she’d keep looking. Regina had told her not to go crazy over it. To enjoy the life she had now and not spend it chasing ghosts. Regina had made peace with Robin’s death, she’d be alright.

But now… She’s never been more grateful for her own stubbornness. 

She’s glad she’s leaning on the bar because she’s pretty sure her knees are useless at this point. Brenda Lee’s jaunty singing sounds very far away over the sound of Regina’s pulse beating in her ears, because she is certain now—absolutely without a doubt certain—that the man sitting across the bar from her is not the one she’d pulled from a wish realm and tried to make do with, but in fact the man who died for her. 

His smile widens, dimples deepening, and his thumb rubs over her knuckles again before he’s unclasping her hands so he can worm his in between and weave his fingers with hers the way he always had. 

Regina blinks, and a tear spills out; she becomes suddenly very aware that it’s not the first. Her cheeks are wet and her mascara is burning and she cannot take her eyes off him long enough to even blink much less give a damn about how she looks. 

She sucks in a breath of much-needed oxygen, letting it out on a rush and a choked, “R-Robin?”

“She also said something about it being quite fitting that it’s Christmas considering that first one we spent together, and wondered where we could find a bearskin rug in Seattle, but I told her I thought we could make do without.”

It’s just ridiculous enough (said with just enough mirth from him and so typically lowbrow from her other half) that it breaks the pent up tension in Regina and she starts to laugh, dropping her head to her forearms for a moment as her shoulders shake with it. If it’s a little hysterical, she thinks that under the circumstances, she’s allowed. 

Regina gives his hand a squeeze and tug, and Robin seems to get the message, untangling their fingers and leaving her hand cold and empty. She has a sudden heart-stopping moment of fear that he’d been some melancholy induced holiday hallucination, but when she picks her head up, he’s walking toward the open end of the bar.

Regina walks parallel on knees as wobbly as a colt’s and meets him there. She couldn’t say who wrapped who up in the other’s arms first, but in an instant they’re a tangle of limbs, fingers clutched into each others’ hair, bodies pressed tighter than is probably appropriate for the public setting. 

He still smells like pine and petrichor, and from this close she can _feel_ the residual magic still buzzing in his skin. 

He's breathing as hard as she is now, and this close she can see that hers aren’t the only eyes that have gone damp. She is grateful, so, so grateful—for her other half, for him, for magic itself—and when he clutches at the hair behind her ear and uses it to urge her head level with his, her heart leaps. She leans into him even further, breathes the breath he exhales, lips drawn to his like a magnet. 

And then she remembers. 

Their mouths are a whisper apart when she wrenches her head back, defying every screaming cell in her body to deny him because he is the love of her life and, “If the curse breaks, Henry dies.”

Robin stills, his fingers sinking from her ear to her nape, his palm cupping her warmly as his expression shifts to something pained and full of sympathy. He bends his brow to hers, murmuring, “Oh, my love, I’m so sorry.”

“He doesn’t know me,” she breathes, her throat tightening for a whole new reason. “And he can’t ever know me or I’ll lose him.”

“Nonsense,” Robin soothes, the hand not at her neck swooping up and down her back in soothing passes. “We’ll work it out; we’ll find a way. I promise.”

“I’ve been trying, but it seems impossible—”

“We’ll do it together. I’ll help; Regina, let me help.” She has a flash of him saying that to her before, of the cautious hope that had bloomed in her and the way he’d bolstered her again and again when she was low. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed _that_ until he’s looking her in the eyes and promising, “We’ll save your son. You found a way to bring me back from nothingness; we’ll find a way to break the curse and save him, too.”

She wants so badly to be convinced. To believe it’s not a lost cause. At the very least, she wants to feel the relief of not being alone in this fight any longer. So she nods, and exhales, and tells him, “We’ll figure it out,” with more confidence than she feels.

Robin sways her back and forth, dipping in close again so he can nudge the tip of his nose against hers, murmuring, “And until then… we’ll just have to avoid the mistletoe.”

It makes her chuckle, makes her smile—two things that even thirty minutes ago she couldn’t imagine were on her schedule today. 

“You’re really here?” she asks, even though she can feel his breath on her chin, and his stubble against her cheek, and his torso pressed tightly to hers. 

“I’m really here,” he answers. His nose brushes hers again, his voice warm, and so familiar, and so full of love, as he tells her, “Merry Christmas, my love.”

Regina has had her share of bad Christmases, and this one is not without its share of pain and misery. But for the first time since she woke up, she has hope. For the first time in a long while, she has love. For the first time in years, she has _him_. 

The sound system has switched to Ingrid Michaelson singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and against all odds, Regina thinks that she just might.


End file.
